


My Love's Subliminal

by firebrands



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Cerebro, Charles You Will Be Drunk, Erik Has Feelings, Erik Logic Is The Best Logic, Erik is a Sweetheart, Hurt Charles, M/M, Protective Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 13:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19151566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firebrands/pseuds/firebrands
Summary: Erik's good at this, at taking and taking and taking, because after a lifetime of deprival, he feels as if he's entitled to everything. Charles understands this.Foolishly, he continues to allow him to keep at it.for LJ community 1stclass_kink prompt: about erik going back to the mansion to help charles rebuild cerebro. slightly more than that, though.





	My Love's Subliminal

Raven and Charles have spent too many years together for Raven to completely sever the connection between them. Sometimes a foreign feeling of sharp pain stabs her in the stomach, a hot curl of need and desperation. 

She knows this is not hers, knows that it's not for her to feel, knows that Charles doesn't mean to make her shut her eyes in displeasure. She wraps herself up in the duvet of the hotel bed and lets herself feel. 

Erik comes to check in on her after a few hours (Raven is sure he's noticed this, the way she goes into her room to be sad and lonely), and she can't help but think: _all he did was love us, Erik. It was all he was ever capable of doing._

She licks her lips and swallows down the bitter resentment that she doesn't have the right to feel—after all, she's with Erik now.

Sometimes she wishes she could scoop out all the pain pooling at the bottom of her heart and feed it to Erik— _you ought to feel it, you ought to know that this is your fault more than mine_ —wishes to watch him feel all of Charles' unbridled want and despair. 

 

"He loves you, you know," she says to him over their breakfast of coffee and croissants. Erik takes a long drag off his cigarette. 

"I know."

"Then let's go back," she says in a moment of defiance.

"You know we can't." he says it like it's so simple. It's the _principle_ of the thing, really. Raven knows this.

She holds his wrist, eyes wide and pleading. _Enough with your pride_ , she thinks desperately, _enough about this future war_. 

"We could be happy—" the grip on his wrist goes slack. "Like we used to be."

Erik turns her chin to face him. "We could make something better."

There's a brief glint in his eye—a faint, desperate plea for her reassurance. It's gone before Raven can properly catalogue it.

Raven turns away. 

"You and I both know that's a lie."

*

"You should visit him sometime." Emma says to him, suddenly. They're sitting on the balcony.

"Excuse me?" Erik asks. Emma continues to look at how her (currently) diamond-encrusted fingernail reflects the colors of the setting sun.

"You know what I'm talking about. I just think you should visit."

Erik doesn't know if he's been too _nice_ to Emma to cause her to treat him with such disquieting familiarity, as if they're _friends_.

He smokes his cigarette and watches from the corner of his eye as Emma glints in the orange light. 

*

They do go back, though. It's completely unexpected by Raven and the look on her face is priceless as the realization dawns on her.

"What—" she starts. Erik rests a hand on her lap, and it silences her.

As he gets out of the car and begins walking up those familiar stone steps, a calm washes over him the goes almost completely unnoticed, the feeling something like the light blanket of safety that sometimes envelops him after stepping sure-footedly onto the sidewalk unscathed. 

Hank looks dumbstruck as he opens the door.

"Uh?" He says, lamely.

"Hi," Raven says, her entire aura almost visibly lightening. Erik is glad to have her on hand, if not just for her social graces in moments like these. "Is Charles in?"

 

They follow Hank up to Charles' study. Hank insists on walking them there, and for a moment Erik wonders if this is because he's being courteous or because he can no longer bring it in himself to trust either of them. 

He shouldn't, probably. On any other day he should have just shut the intricate oak door in both their seemingly traitorous faces. He made the right choice to let them in, though. For now.

Hank shuts the door behind them. 

Charles isn't the same man. There's a certain wariness that surrounds him, which pleases and saddens Erik at the same time. 

He's begun to accept that this is entirely his fault, just like everything else is. (There's a flash of memory: the twist in his gut as he desperately tries to make that goddamned coin _move_ , the metallic click of the trigger—)

"What are you doing here?" Charles asks, voice even and unreadable.

"Just visiting," Erik answers, which is the truth, really.

Charles smiles thinly.

"Raven," he says, nodding to her. 

"Charles," she breathes out, years worth of sadness escaping through her mouth. 

"Are you too lazy to move around, now?" Erik asks, gesturing to the wheelchair. There's a niggling sense of awareness that begins to form at the back of Erik's skull, but he smiles at the joke.

Charles' face softens. "Erik," he says, looking down at his shoes, and then Erik _knows_ , the truth hitting him like a punch in the gut.

"Charles," Erik is kneeling now, his hand like a phantom weight on Charles' thigh. "Oh, _Charles_ ," he feels that those are the only words he knows. 

Raven watches the scene, rigid with a mixture of anger and regret. She brushes Erik away and leans forward to place a kiss on Charles' forehead.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. 

A small smile graces Charles' lips as he touches her cheek. 

It feels like absolution. 

Raven adjusts her skirt. 

"I'm going to go speak to Hank, now." She makes it sound as if it's so simple; as if her brother hasn't just been handicapped by the man she's on the same side as.

 

Erik stands up and squeezes Charles' shoulder.

"Charles, I'm—" he starts, and then falters. 

He's never had to apologize for anything in his life; he's always been the victim, and for the first time in a long, long time there's a twist of guilt somewhere inside him, left of center.

"You couldn't have known," Charles says, and for a moment Erik clenches his jaw and quells the bubble of complete adoration that begins to rise up his spine.

"You're unbelievable." Erik says, after a beat.

Charles smiles ruefully.

"Let me make it up to you." 

"Pardon me?"

"This—" Erik gestures vaguely to Charles' legs, "For this. Let me make it up to you."

"What, then we can call it quits?" Charles smirks at this.

Erik touches his forehead and breathes in deeply. 

"I cannot bear to see you like this, Charles. If only I could—"

"Do not trouble yourself with it any longer, Erik. It is done."

*

Erik and Raven are seated by the dining table. They're sharing a sandwich, or rather, Raven is stealing bites from Erik's tuna sandwich.

" _How can you trust him, Charles_?" they can hear Hank's fierce whispers floating into the room from the hallway. Raven smiles at Erik—they're thinking the same thing: at least Hank's finally found his voice.

" _I don't think this is smart at all. He could do things to the new cerebro—things to help him and his so-called battle. I don't know how, but he'll find a way. He could hurt you more than he already has._ "

The silence that fills the space is stifling. Raven takes a sip from her glass of coke because she doesn't know what to do with her hands.

"Hello," Charles says as he enters the room. For a moment Erik is shocked at seeing Charles at eye level.

"Hank wants to show you the plans for the new Cerebro."

*

Charles sits and watches as Erik works. It's always been a wonderment for him, the way Erik could just _mold_ things, the way his opened his palms up and stretched the skin between his fingers. 

"It's rude to stare," Erik says, and Charles can already tell that there's a bit of a smile on his face without Erik having to turn around.

"I can't help it if the view is lovely, can I?"

There's a barely visible movement somewhere along Erik's shoulder blades, the tension settling there like a cape. 

Charles shakes his head. All these years and still....

The veins along Erik's forearms are beginning to strain. The chamber itself is coming along quite nicely, the flat rectangles of metal covering half of the framework. 

"I think it's time we headed upstairs." Charles says after checking his watch.

"In a little while, Charles."

Charles sighs. It's always been something about Erik, about how he always needs to have a semblance of control, even though it was one of the things he barely possesses. 

"Erik."

Erik finally sets down his hands and walks up to Charles. "Pushy, aren't you?"

"Only when I need to be." Erik smiles down at him and rests his hands on the handles of the wheelchair. 

"Where to?"

"To chess and brandy?"

"Exactly what I was thinking."

"Well they don't call me a telepath for nothing, you know."

"Ah but you forget," Erik says, rapping a fist against his metal helmet.

"Or maybe I just know you too well," Charles smiles. He doesn't mean for the banter to die down, but it does.

*

Erik loses twice in a row. 

Somewhere, his gut is telling him that he's losing more than a chess game.

*

"Charles, I was wondering if I could borrow some—"

Charles was sitting up on his bed, looking at his feet, unmoving, under the covers.

"I'm sorry, I completely forgot to knock."

"It's no worry. What did you need?"

"Shaving cream?"

"Medicine cabinet by the sink."

"Ah."

Erik tries to pad through the room as quietly as possible.

"Listen Charles, do you—do you need any help?"

"No, thank you." Charles says to him and smiles, and there's something broken in there, Erik can tell. He sets down the shaving cream and sits at Charles side.

Charles looks at him for a while. "You're not wearing your helmet, you know."

"I don't wear it to sleep, Charles."

"I know you don't."

"What do you mean?"

"Your dreams, Erik. You never really did master how to keep them completely to yourself, did you?"

"Dependency on the helmet is to blame, I suppose. And, if I recall correctly, you promised that you would not go poking around in there."

Charles smiles at him, serene and shattered at the same time. "I didn't mean to. No one means for these things to happen, Erik. You of all people should know."

It's a thinly veiled blow. "Do you need me to apologize, or something?"

"I'd rather you meant it than have it coerced out of you."

"In some ways, Charles, I don't think you shall ever change."

"And you as well, Erik. Which is exactly why I know that once you finish Cerebro, the chance of you staying is as likely as me leaving. Am I right?"

"Insufferably so." Erik clicks his tongue against his teeth and rests his hand on Charles' hip. "But for now, let me help you."

"No," Charles says, his hand a gentle pressure against Erik's chest. "I'll be fine."

"Explain to me how that works out, Charles."

"Erik, please." Suddenly he's exasperated and—Erik's hands mirror his, a gentle pressure pushing him back down on the bed.

"No, Charles." Erik's lips ghost over his before finally pressing them together.

There's the metallic taste of blood heavy on Erik's tongue. Charles' mouth is soft and parts open as Erik sucks slowly on his bottom lip.

 

Erik's good at this, at taking and taking and taking, because after a lifetime of deprival, he feels as if he's entitled to everything. Charles understands this. 

Foolishly, he continues to allow him to keep at it.

*

"You can assure Hank that I've not included anything untoward to your mental capacities."

Raven is waiting upstairs, because she can't bear to say goodbye. Hank had holed himself up in his room, once again. It was an unfortunate turn of events, for them.

"Count on it."

Erik leans down and kisses Charles chastely on the lips.

"Goodbye, Erik."

"Goodbye, Charles." Erik licks his lips, debating. Then he leans down and kisses Charles again.

"At least you're doing it properly this time."

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2011, migrated from LJ. :)


End file.
